This post is long over due, and I am ashamed of myself for waiting so long to review this glorious book.

The Graces follows River as she snakes her way into the inner circle of the Grace family. The Graces are a super beautiful, super mysterious, and super beloved family in a small town. Being the gorgeous, mystery-shrouded beings that they are, everyone in the town kind of thinks they're witches, and they don't really do much to dissuade people from thinking that because they are too gorgeous and mysterious to appease such peasant rumors. Basically, think of the Grace family kind of like how the Cullen family is introduced in Twilight (I never read the books but I've seen the movies, and that's going to have to be close enough for this comparison).

River is by no means an easy character to like - homegirl has A LOT of internalized Issues. But as soon as I realized that we never actually get to know River's real name (River is a name she decides to call herself early on in the book), I was immediately intrigued by the mysterious and unreliable nature of our narrator. It becomes very clear through the book that River will do Anything to become part of the Graces' inner circle, and she does some pretty terrible things along the way. I've seen a lot of reviews saying that River is not likable, and while she is definitely not a great person (read: she's definitely chaotic evil, which can come across as being a bad person), I kind of liked her ruthless passion - how much she was willing to do for what she wanted, what she thought she deserved. I think she's a bit of an antihero, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of her.

Then there's the Grace family. Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer are the siblings of the Grace family, the first two being twins and Summer being the younger sibling who is in River's grade. These characters had many layers to them - on the forefront, there was how much they loved being revered in their town, worshiped for being these awesome, supposedly-magical beings, but deeper, there was this yearning for connection that wasn't built from idolization. I thoroughly enjoyed as the layers were peeled back from these characters, showing a rawness in them that was so different from River.

Besides the magic of the characters themselves, there's such a magical feeling in the way the world is built in The Graces. The way that Laure Eve describes everything in the world was so enrapturing - I found myself feeling magnetized, drawn deeper and deeper into the world that she built, yearning for just a little bit more of that magic through every page. This book was chilling in a way that's similar to another book that I love: The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle.

Overall, The Graces is an absolutely captivating story of magic, mystery, and desire. There's friendship, family, romance, and so much more packed into this book, and I absolutely loved every second of it. I highly recommend this book to readers looking for something that feels eerily magical. I can't wait to see what Laure Eve has in store for The Curses!

Playlist Inspired by The Graces

I've always had a passion for making playlists (I personally think that I should have been a part of the mixtape generation because I absolutely love the idea of making mixtapes and giving them to people and yes I have definitely done that with mix CDs and playlists), but I've never made a book inspired playlist before. UNTIL NOW! While I was reading The Graces, I found that the tone of the book really inspired me and made me think of specific songs, so I decided to put together a full playlist and share it here! The playlist is as follows:

River - Bishop Briggs

Obsessions - Marina and the Diamonds

Worth The Fight - Broods

All I Need - Radiohead

Leave The Lights On - Meiko

Hear The Bells (Hear The Bells EP version) - Vanessa Carlton

Navigate - Band Of Skulls

Cold Cold Water - Mirah

Freak Of Nature - Broods ft. Tove Lo

I Could Be There For You - Eisley

Call It Off - Tegan and Sara

Hotblack - Oceanship

The Flowers - Regina Spektor

I Can't Take It - Tegan and Sara

Enemy Among Us - Paper Route

Plenty of Paper - Eisley

Nearly Witches [Ever Since We Met...] - Panic! At The Disco

And here's an embedded version of the playlist through Spotify if you want to give it a listen all together, or you can check it out on Spotify here!

10 comments:

I wasn't a fan of this one myself, but I'm glad you mentioned The Accident Season. I actually really love that book myself. I love that you put together a playlist for this review. It's so creative and makes me want to include one in a future review.

I've seen several negative reviews for this one, but I really enjoyed the way that the unreliable narrator was done - it was more that she was hiding something than anything else, which added to the mystery.

I liked this one too, even though not a ton of people agreed with me haha. I didn't love it quite as much as you did, but I definitely appreciated it! I agree that the vibe was a lot like The Accident Season, that is a great comparison! Your playlist is great too! Glad you enjoyed it, and great review!

I've seen a lot of negative reviews for this one too, so I guess it's just not for everyone. Glad you enjoyed it too, even if it wasn't as much a love as it was for me. Thanks for checking out the playlist! :)

I've had this book on my shelf for at least 6 months and I've not picked it up. I think because I saw a couple of less than stellar reviews I became a bit hesitant. You're review definitely gives me hope that I might actually like it. I'll definitely be moving it back up my TBR pile. It deserves a chance and it sounds really interesting which is why I wanted to read in the first place. How did I forget that?

I think a lot of the time what happens with negative reviews is that it's like poisoning the well - someone points out a flaw and then everyone who reads it sees nothing but that flaw. I'm sure this book isn't for everyone, but I really enjoyed it and I hope you do too when you give it a try! :)